


I Only Know Him In The Dark

by melanie1982



Category: Sarah from the Labyrinth, Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Desire, F/M, IloveJuffy, Menarche, Menstruation, Paganism, SQUICK WARNING, SarahIsSixteen, Seduction, Spiritualism, Waiting, blood-play, iloveSparah, iloveSpuffy, jailbaitinothers, legalinsomeplaces, non-canon, reference to masturbation w an object
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 11:07:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7712542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melanie1982/pseuds/melanie1982
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah has been waiting for Jareth, but he hasn't come.</p><p>Someone else answers her call... </p><p>I own none of the characters. I make no money from my made-up stories.</p><p>This is Part 1. Part 2 is posted.</p><p>I christen this ship The SS Sparah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's been waiting, searching, doing all she can..

Thirteen months. Sarah had been dying for thirteen months.

No one else noticed how drawn she was, how pale. Her friends from the Underground had vanished, leaving her alone with her memories, wondering if it had all been a dream.

She waited for days with a forecast of rain, returning to the park wearing the same clothes, reciting the same lines. She bathed, slept, *lived* with an armful of plastic bracelets on her at all times, carried her worn red lipstick with her everywhere she went, and felt ready to leave this world at any moment. The girl babysat Toby as often as she could, hoping Jareth would stop by if her father and stepmother were gone.

Sarah researched: meditation; astral travel; invocations.. She painted sigils on the wooden floor, peeling back the carpet to cast her circle. She prayed - to any and every deity whose names were known, along with a few of her own invention.

Jareth did not come for her.

"Say your right words," she admonished herself. Sarah wished - firm wishes, vague wishes, desperate wishes, wishes with promises and bribes attached, wishes with curses and commands. She did not dare to wish Toby away again, but she offered herself. 

Jareth remained silent.

It was a balmy evening in April - April 30, to be precise. Sarah was planning to attend a May Fair, excited and hopeful that perhaps one of the women of the path would be able to help her. The window was open, allowing her to feel at one with the outside world, with nature and the universe. As she was writing in her diary - Sarah kept meticulous notes of her dreams, memories, research and efforts - she felt a terrible cramp seize her middle.

Breathing through the pain, she felt it subside, only to be replaced by another, then another, until she was forced to abandon her work.

A trip to the bathroom revealed the cause of it all: Sarah had begun to bleed.

Many of her peers were repulsed by what they deemed 'the curse.' Not Sarah. Sarah was enthralled. 

A tentative swipe of her fingers, and she brought up the crimson to inspect it. It smelled of earth, of iron, and of something distinctly 'her.' Watching her reflection in the mirror, Sarah carefully applied a smear of red to her third eye, one to each cheek, and, after a moment of hesitation, to her lips. After tending to the matters necessitated by her change, she readied for bed. 

Sarah slept with the curtains open, bathed in the glow of the full moon.

Somewhere below, in the shadows, a stranger waited, his eyes burning with a primal need.


	2. Answers?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah meets a new friend

The fair was a wonderful experience, but Sarah had found no answers. She was tired, yet her body hummed with a sweet anticipation which buoyed her despite her disappointment. One of the women had taught Sarah how to enclose some of her flow within an amulet, and with every touch of her fingers, she felt the surge of power contained therein. 

A faint scratching sound distracted her from her book, but when Sarah looked out into the night, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Resuming her reading, the sound almost forgotten, Sarah felt a chill. Pulling a light blanket from the bed and draping it over her shoulders, she tried to focus, but something was.. off. There was a feeling of someone else being in the room, or at least nearby, and she couldn't shake it.

"Who's there?" Sarah mentally kicked herself; oldest horror movie tropes in the world. Girl hears noise; girl gets spooked enough to call out; girl gets (fill in the blank with something awful). The answer came not in words, but in an inner knowing.

*Invite me in, and you'll find out.*

The sense was not of Jareth. Had he perhaps sent a messenger? The energy of this.. visitor was dark, yet not fully dark. There was something tender about it, something inviting..

*Well?*

Sarah went to the window, looking out again, feeling a fool. What did she expect to see - an owl? A crystal? Jareth hovering just beyond the glass?

She uncapped the vial around her neck, dipping a finger inside before smearing the window ledge with red. The sides got the same treatment, and she wondered when her father had started buying that fake salt instead of the real stuff; she could use some right about now. 

"If you mean any harm, go away from this place. You aren't - " Sarah caught herself before she said the name. "You aren't the one I want."

*But I could be the one you need.*

She shook her head. Perhaps she was over-tired. Making sure the window was locked, she got ready for bed.

*Invite me in.*

She tried to block it out, but couldn't. There was something about this being that called to her.

*I will not harm you. Not like Jareth did, anyway.*

Sarah froze.

"You knew him?"

*Know him. Present tense. Invite me in, and I'll explain.*

Sarah looked around her room at the objects carefully concealed: her athame, small, but sharp enough to do real damage; her sigils, burning her feet through the carpet; her various protective spells secreted in cracks and corners. 

Maybe Jareth would get jealous. Maybe he'd come to her rescue, should she need it.

Maybe she was crazy.

"I.." What were the words? She hadn't had to invite Jareth in, not exactly. "I invite you in."

There was no reply. Perhaps he'd gotten bored of her already; perhaps she'd imagined it all.

Sarah settled into an uneasy sleep which lasted just over an hour.


	3. Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Sarah each want something, but theirs is an uneasy contract

It had been just over an hour, when Sarah awoke with a start. She did not sit up, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. A figure was standing less than a foot away, and terror left her with no breath for screaming.

The figure was tall and thin, a leather jacket hanging upon his frame. Sarah found her voice.

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

He knelt down to her level. "I've come to answer your prayers."

Those words seemed familiar; not Jareth's.. Where had this scene unfolded before?

"Interview with a Vampire, love. Louis wished for death, and Lestat answered that call. You.." He reached out to caress her hair, and she tensed. The hand withdrew. "You wished for something else."

The mocking tone made her shiver. "What would you know about it?"

Spike smiled, flashing white in the darkness. "I know where that hairbrush handle has been. I know where your mind wanders, the things you crave.."

His words sent her heart into overdrive.

"..the secret, shameful fantasies you harbor for a being older than you can imagine. Such a pretty young thing; but you don't even look at those mortal oiks at your school, do you?"

She shook her head no. 

"It's all about him, eh? All for Jareth." He was allowing his eyes to wander the landscape of her form, and Sarah felt exposed. 

"What does any of that have to do with you?"

Spike sat at the foot of her bed. "Sometimes in order to get what we want, we have to figure out what we need." 

She sat up, relaxing slightly; surely if he wanted to kill her, he'd have done it by now, right? He wasn't going to talk her to death. "That's a nice fortune cookie idea. Care to explain?"

Spike chuckled, and it was dark and rich like chocolate cherries, warming her in a way only one other man had ever - 

"Simple. You give me what I need, and I'll help you get what you want."

She waited. Spike sighed.

"The blood. I need it; you've got it. I won't have to bite you to take it - "

The word 'VAMPIRE' flashed in her brain like a neon sign - 

" - and in return, I can teach you how to please your king. He appreciates women of experience."

She felt suddenly inadequate. "Are you telling me that's why he's stayed away? To let me sow my oats?"

Spike nodded. "You're ripe for the plowing. I can make it good for you, Sarah. Will you let me?"

She hesitated. "Let me see you. Turn on the light."

Sarah hadn't finished speaking in the time it took for him to throw the both of them into the brightness of her overhead light.

He was handsome, she realized - not Jareth, but he had a similar sort of.. swagger about him. The snark was definitely strong in this one, too, and he had that accent.. 

"So you can only take my blood from.. uh.."

Spike shrugged. "That's up to you. If you trust me enough, there are other ways. I merely suggested the least painful one."

She was torn. He seemed to know so much about what she wanted, and he was willing to help her.. But there had to be a catch. Nothing was that easy.

"You'll never know unless you try. That's what my Sire said, anyway. Summat along those lines."

He was looking at her, *into* her. Sarah wavered. "I need to think about it."

He laughed. "Fair enough. Now that you've extended your invitation, I can return. When you're ready to be sensible, I'll be here."

Sarah opened her mouth to speak again, but he was gone. She hadn't even heard the window close behind him.

Only one other man had offered her her dreams, and that had been in exchange for Toby. This man wanted far less than that. 

"Jareth.." she murmured. What would he want her to do?

She drifted off again, singing. 'It's only forever..'


End file.
